A Slender Figure in Rouge and Snow

[Angsty Love and Revenge, Cool and Clever Princess vs. Fake Aloof Beauty, Real Twisted Ghost] 1. Everyone probably has a fate they cannot escape. Xie Bugui was mine. The year I lost my footing and fell from a great height, Xie Bugui came riding beneath the moon, his robes flying like snow and his horse trampling silver blossoms. He saved me just before I plunged from the ten-zhang-high platform. I was utterly, hopelessly in love with him. And the look in his eyes when he gazed at me clearly said he loved me, too. We became husband and wife. I followed him across mountains and rivers to the capital. My Central Plains speech was poor, and people often made fun of me. So Xie Bugui would take up a book and teach me word by word. I often saw him lighting a lamp, a wooden stopper between his teeth, as he studied the difficult languages of foreign peoples. He was so wonderful. I wanted nothing more than to spend my whole life with him. But I never imagined that, to ensure he would never betray me, Mother would place a love curse on him. The illustrious Young Phoenix, General of Divine Might, was controlled by the curse and became utterly devoted to me, an enemy from a foreign tribe. He spent every day at my side, betraying the woman he had loved for years. The woman he loved married another, leaving him with a lifelong regret. On the day I suffered a difficult labor, he slaughtered his way through the palace and seized the throne with a forged decree. An imperial edict was delivered to my bedside: Born of low status, fit only to be a concubine 2. After the love curse on Xie Bugui was lifted, he rose to the highest position and ruled the world. Nothing he wanted was beyond his reach. Yet the woman he loved had become another man's wife. He built her a golden house, set lanterns alight, planted love trees, and promised her the position of empress... But that woman remained cool and unmoved. And so my ordeal began. That night, wind and snow raged. A palace lantern fell to the ground. He wound my hair around his fingers, then kissed me roughly, with none of the tenderness he had once shown me. In the third year of Mingli, Xie Bugui sent troops to attack Nanzhao, shrouding my homeland in smoke and fire. But Xie Bugui, you will never know that the most effective way for a hostage to thwart a conspiracy is to kill herself. Snow swept across the sky. Wearing the scarlet phoenix-and-bird skirt worn for ancestral rites in my homeland, I leapt from the city wall before the entire army. The snow fell so heavily that I could no longer make out anyone's face, or the expressions they wore. 3. After she died, the emperor held no funeral rites and made no arrangements for her burial. On the seventh day after her death, he stood alone before her coffin until midnight. As soon as the hour of the Rat passed, he suddenly ordered it opened. The emperor who had destroyed Buddhist temples, killed monks, and believed in neither gods nor ghosts bowed his head and knelt before the coffin. He pressed a blade to his wrist and offered his blood to the heavens, pleading again and again to see the spirit of his departed beloved. His hands trembling, he lifted her limp, lifeless head and kissed the corpse's neck, his grief both agonizing and tender. The longevity lock, split into four pieces, was stained with dried blood. - Later, one day, everyone in the capital saw paper money flying through the sky. The Son of Heaven's golden carriage and jade palanquin, a phoenix crown and red bridal robes, a wedding procession stretching ten li: dressed in bridal red and funeral white, he married his dead wife again. He even held her corpse in his arms every night, cut his own flesh to feed her his blood, and sought secret methods to bring his beloved back to life at any cost, driven mad and consumed by a love as obsessive as it was diseased. Far away in Nanzhao, I heard about it and did no more than sigh softly: The sky and feelings belong to this moment. I am a carefree little immortal when nothing is wrong. From now on, you will lie upon your lofty platform, and I will dwell in the spring hills. We will never meet again, in this life or the next. +++++++ 1. Originally titled The Unfeeling Eye. Both leads are each other's first and only love, and neither has other romantic partners. The ending is happy. The "unfeeling eye" refers to the heroine, not the hero; this will be made clear in the story. The blurb uses an unreliable narrative from the heroine's perspective. Please do not invent plot details in the comments. If there are any issues, please delete them. The jump from the city wall happens in chapters 54 and 55. 2. The heroine's name comes from the line, "A peerless song of delicate beauty, love is nothing but seeing who becomes trapped in a cocoon." "Tender grasses and herbs nourish all things in silence. Their virtue is like that of the people: though small in stature, they are not lowly. They move the world with the breeze without arrogance, and remain natural in all things, their pure hearts plain to see." This story follows the course of her life as she passes through it. - 2024/8/8: Zhu Qianqian x Xie Bugui - Coming soon: After Deceiving the Aloof Beauty Female lead and male lead are each other's first love / Wei-Jin era atmosphere / possessive love / a virtuous gentleman turns dark and obsessive Mild-mannered, affectionate young widow vs. saintly, self-serving man in power --Blurb-- So Wang Guanling hated her. That was what Xuxu only realized belatedly. Wang Guanling was the eldest young master of the Langya Wang clan, peerlessly refined and distinguished. Wherever he went, the common folk made way for him, and members of the scholar clans greeted him with the respect due to an elder. She had no family background or inherited privilege. She made a living by preparing the dead for burial. When she saw a nobleman like him, she had to kneel by the roadside and cover her face with her sleeve, only daring to look up after his carriage had passed. And yet a woman like her saved him when he was badly injured and had lost his memory, then deceived him for a whole year. It was a stormy night when Wang Guanling collapsed outside her home. The young lord was as beautiful as spring flowers beneath a frosty moon, with an air of distinction, but he was ruinously expensive. A single garment of his was worth a hundred taels of gold. She had planned to get rid of this hot potato, but then he spoke, his voice clear and cool, so much like someone she had once known. He said he had lost his memory and had nowhere to go. So she told an enormous lie: "We are husband and wife." Whenever they made love, she covered her eyes with a strip of cloth, craving only his voice, clear as fresh snow. And he would always pant beside her ear, telling her again and again that he loved her. - After Wang Guanling returned home, rumors began to spread. The eldest young master of the Langya Wang clan, once so skilled in power plays and schemes, now carried a bone-deep air of detachment. She brought him tea, and he took it and set it aside without looking at her hands. She spoke, and he answered with a single "Mm," then said nothing more. When their eyes occasionally met, she saw no tenderness in his gaze, only a cold scrutiny, as if he were sizing up a stranger. "The eldest young master must have tired of that woman from a common clan," everyone said. At first, she did not believe them. Not until that night, when she approached him, only for him to silently push her away. He stood beneath the lamplight, the candle illuminating his handsome, aloof face. There was not a trace of his former infatuation in his eyes. He said just one thing: "I, Wang Guanling, would never fall for someone like you." - The Wang clan discovered that she had used sorcery to bewitch their master and tamper with his memories. They wanted to beat her to death. Xuxu's hands and feet were shackled as she knelt before the hall. All around her, the entire Langya Wang clan seethed with anger. Blades glinted, and an icy chill pressed in on her. Wang Guanling sat in the seat of honor, looking down at it all without sorrow or joy, like a god or Buddha. Only when the clan elders asked him how she should be dealt with did he speak. His voice was flat: "Since she had no intention of harming me, there is no need to punish her. Give her a residence and provide her with fine clothes and food. Do not let outsiders say the Wang clan is cruel." Everyone said the eldest young master was benevolent and impartial. Yet it was precisely this cold, bone-deep indifference that let her see him clearly for the first time. She realized she could no longer feel the possessive desire she had once known. Xuxu left a letter of apology and quietly departed. - War broke out in the Central Plains, and Xuxu fled with a great many refugees. On the road, she met a man. He resembled her deceased husband even more than Wang Guanling did. His appearance, voice, and expression were all identical. She did not dare make another mistake. But this time, the other person recognized her first and called out to her through his sobs: "Xuxu, I missed you so much." Reunited as husband and wife, they felt as if they had returned from another lifetime. Overcome with joy, she wept, thinking that Heaven had not treated her too harshly after all. They discussed returning to their old home for a visit. But halfway there, smoke and dust surged up ahead. The Wang clan's banners snapped in the wind, and carriage after carriage blocked their way. That cool and captivating nobleman, so imposing and difficult to approach, came step by step from his carriage, clad in a loose robe and light furs. - From then on, Wang Guanling was behind her every night. The saint, cold of heart and nature, slipped his long, jade-smooth hands beneath her clothes, toying with her as he pleased, giving her no chance to refuse. When he had had his fill, he coaxed her into taking up a brush and painting his portrait: his brows, eyes, nose, and lips, every detail had to be exact. For every mistake, he added another hour of punishment. When the punishment was over, he gathered the flushed woman in his arms and said in a tender, husky voice: "Xuxu, deceive me one more time. Tell me you are my wife." - For Wang Guanling, hatred was the most potent aphrodisiac. Xuxu was the only ingredient his medicine needed. Theme: Seeing one's own heart clearly